


Mass Effect: Riddles

by Lentrax



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Lesbian Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:20:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 11,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26612110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lentrax/pseuds/Lentrax
Summary: Her name is Erin Christov. She is a merc for Eclipse. She has pulled jobs all over the galaxy, performing all manner of dirty deeds.Her name is Zeninae. She is an investigator on Thessia, working for what is referred to as the Office of Mercenary Affairs.Erin's file just came across her desk. And Zeninae is intrigued. And after watching vidfeeds of the mercenary in action, a little aroused.She doesn't want to take Erin down. But the law is the law. And her job has always come first.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 1





	1. The Dossier

The datapad made a slapping sound as it slid across Zeninae's desk.

A blue hand reached out to pick it up, and the Asari who picked it up looked at the screen.

"Eyes only, classified. What is this?"

"Your new job, Zen. A merc. Eclipse. Runs mostly out of the Terminus systems. Dealings on Omega, backdoor deals on Illium. Smuggling, murder, you name it, it's in the file."

Zeninae sighs. Another merc to track down. Ordinarily its no problem, but things have gotten... busy, as of late. The Geth war against the Alliance, the attack on the Citadel. The reports on the so called "Reapers."

And half of her caseload is potential leads on Cerberus agents. Because _those_ assholes aren't going anywhere. Getting busier of late too, it seems. And the council wants Cerberus activity to be-

"This one is your new priority. Handled now. The rest of your caseload will be redistributed among the junior detectives."

That caught Zeninae's attention. She had never lost a case before. She'd always been given the latitude to approach her cases however she wanted because she always got the right results.

"Why is this one so special?" she asked, looking up at her boss, Captain Celitha. She got a nice glimpse of the smooth purple flesh under her captain's shirt as the other Asari bent just enough to lift the other pads from Zeninae's desk.

'Read her file. You'll see. Read the file. Get back to me on your initial thoughts and plan. Tomorrow, first thing."

"Yeah. Sure. I'll see what I can come up with. Oh, and Captain? You know how much I hate you calling me Zen."

"And yet I keep doing it. interesting, isn't it?" the captain said, turning to leave. As the door slid open on silent servos, she turned her purple head back to Zeninae. "First thing tomorrow."

"You got it, Cel."

Zeninae got to hear the first part of Celitha's sigh as the door slid shut behind the captain.

Zeninae sighed herself as she turned to her desk. 

Then she did what she always did when she got a new case. She opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of a pale blue liquor she got from an Alliance colony 60 years ago. A variant of another drink they called whiskey.

She pulled the cork from the bottle and poured a generous measure into a delicate Salarian crystal glass she removed from the same drawer. Looking down at the file, she toasted it with her glass.

"Here's to a pleasant working relatioship, you devil." She downed the glass, set the glass aside, and slid the datapad into a slot on her desk. Immediately, a display popped up asking for her credentials. After entering them, A mass of information leaped onto the display. Using her hands in long familiar gestures, she sorted the files and videos into neat piles of information. Then she picked one, and started going through it.

_Interesting. Right away I can see this will be a long one. And it won't be easy either._

She had a dossier up. not her official one for the investigation, but another one, detailing a career in the Alliance Navy.

> Name: Erin Christov  
>  Age: 26 Date of Birth: March 16, 2158  
>  Height 1.8m Weight: 67.6kg  
>  Skin: Pale Hair: Blonde Eyes: Blue
> 
> Background: Erin was born on the Russian Steppes. From a young age she was raised the same way her ancestors were, living off the land, not in one of Earth's megacities. Her enlistment records her enlistment in the Alliance Navy on March 16, 2176. She was accepted into the Alliance Marines and was trained in Infantry. Her Psychological and Intelligence profiles have been classified IAW ICP protocols.
> 
> Date of Enlistment: 16 March 2176  
>  Date Completion of Training: 30 Sept 2176
> 
> First Tour: SSV Hastings 30 Sept 2176- 31 Oct 2178  
> 
> 
> Action Taken: First Wave, Assault on Torfan  
>  Slaver Patrol, Torfan Sector  
> 
> 
> Field Promotion to Lieutenant, Second Grade. Promotion confirmed  
>  by ANHQ, London, Earth 
> 
> Second Tour: SSV Tripoli 15 Nov 2178- 30 Nov 2180  
> 
> 
> Action Taken: Standard Patrol: Attican Beta Relay
> 
> Promotion to Lieutenant Commander, 6 Dec 2180
> 
> Accepted to Interplanetary Combatives Training Program  
>  [REDACTED]
> 
> Tour: SSV Acre 1 Jan 2182- 16 Jan 2184  
> 
> 
> Action Taken: Patrol: Alpha Centauri  
>  Combat: Eden Prime, Elysium, Cortan, Ares, [REDACTED]
> 
> [REDACTED], 3 Feb 2184. [REDACTED].
> 
> [REDACTED]
> 
> [REDACTED]
> 
> Date of Separation: 25 Jun 2184  
>  Reason for Separation: [REDACTED]  
>  Separation Type: Honorable, no other conditions.
> 
> Reeligibity Code: 1A

_Hmmm. A soldier. A good one too, from the look of it. How did you fall so far?_

Zeninae stood up from her desk and looked out the window across the beautiful landscape of Thessia.

_And what do I do when i find you?_


	2. The Briefing

Zeninae spent the night going through the full dossier. She pulled things she thought was relevant. She started trying to connect dots. She found inconsistencies, started trying to put facts together.

From what she had found so far, Erin Christov was discharged two years ago, in the Earth year 2184. The reason for this discharge was redacted, but from what Zeninae was able to piece together, Erin appears to have joined Eclipse some three months earlier. That smelled of some kind of espionage act. But the fact that she had taken to the mercenary life so well after her discharge led her to believe she had gone rogue.

A rogue Earther, trained by their elite special forces, living the life of a pirate. And she is having her own illustrious career. But there are some major missing pieces. Gaps in her known activity. These could be explained by wanting to maintain a low profile after pulling one job or another. But something in it didn't make sense to Zeninae.

There just wasn't enough there for her to piece it together. Not even the jobs seemed to be related. But that in and of itself didn't mean anything. Mercs went where the credits were. That was simple. And with Eclipse hierarchy the way it is, she ma not have had much choice on which jobs she was sent to.

But still... 

Zeninae spent a mostly restless night mulling the pieces in her mind. And replaying the videos she had seen. Those were, frankly, kind of hot. She would take how erotic she found the human woman's dedication to violence. It was more stimulating than the newest releases of Fornax, and that she had a subscription to the smut mag was something she would take to her grave.

And so it was that a not very refreshed Zeninae walked into the briefing room to find herself surprised once again.

In addition to her Captain, she found herself looking into the face of an Alliance Officer.

Maybe? The man wore no name, no sign of rank. Just a plain, unadorned uniform. And then she understood.

Alliance Intelligence. A piece clicked into place, but it doesn't solve anything. If anything, it only makes what she doesn't know all the more important.

"Investigator Zeninae," Celitha began. "This is Mister Smith, from Alliance Intelligence. He is here to... assist you in creating a mission profile."

 _Smith, huh? Isn't that the fake name, like_ every _human uses for anonymity?_

"Yes," the human says to start the conversation. "But first, please tell me what you have put together thus far. I will help you fill in some of the gaps we know about."

And so, Zeninae did just that. She may have intentionally 'forgot' to include her suspicions that Erin was Alliance Intelligence, undercover with Eclipse for some reason. And she definitely left out how the vidcaps made her feel. That in and of itself might be enough to cost her the case, if not her job. And she was not ready to live out the rest of her life in 'sanctuary.' So she left it out, and gave her findings in drab detail.

"Good. That's good, Miss Zeninae," Mister Smith said when she had finished. "A few details out of place here and there, but I see you have gotten the essence of Commander Christov's character just right. But let me add a few things to your information. Now, as you noted her psych and performance evals were redacted. That is standard procedure for our N-school candidates..."

_Interesting that he would use a slang term for their special forces program, rather than the official term. Is he trying to put me at ease, or convince himself? Athame above, these humans are so protective of their egos..._

"...but I can give you a few of the details from the initial evaluations, and from those later on, before her discharge," Smith kept going. "Commander Christov has a very 'humans first attitude. To the point of extreme Xenophobia. She objected to Captain Rommel's decision to allow non-human mercenaries travel aboard the SSV _TripoliAggressive. But I knew that already. Xenophobic? I expected that from the reports of her preferring to work with other Human members of Eclipse. Oh, and note to self... dig through the crew records of the_ Tripoli _for a recording of that fistfight...._

"That is useful," Zeninae says with the slightest hint of excitement in her voice. She tries to push it down, but she is already feeling a growing warmth deep in her loins. "But tell me something. My entire caseload has been parceled out to other detectives, and I have been given this priority to find Miss Christov. Why? Why is she so important?"

'Because," Smith said, drawing out the word as though not wishing to reveal a secret. "Commander Christov was our asset in Eclipse. She had been sending us details about their operations, members, finances, everything she could get ahold of. And the reason we sent this to your office instead of handling it ourselves, is that we do not want to blow her cover. We need to retrieve Miss Christov and bring her in before something happens to her."

"And by, "Before something happens to her," you really mean, before something worse happens to her, right?"

"That," Smith says, with a sigh that belies just how agitated he is, "is an understatement."

He sighs again.

"You see, the Commander was supposed to check in with us two moths ago, and her Eclipse cell has gone dark as well."

Smith got up and strode over to the delicately curved floor-to-ceiling window of the briefing room. He angled his gaze upward as though looking straight at wherever Lieutenant Commander Erin Christov was.

'We have two possibilities. The first is that she is dead, killed in whatever action she had just been sent on."

"And the other?" Zeninae asked, already knowing the answer.

'The second is that, Lieutenant Erin Christov, one of the finest killing machines the Alliance Navy ever made, has gone rogue."


	3. The Arrival

The _Terrik'a'ven_ was about three hours out from the relay. As was her custom, Erin was sitting in the starboard lounge with a bottle of Vodka. Today, watching the image of the Gorgon Nebula pass by her view. Though it could be said that she didn't truly see it. Instead, she was reading messages she had received while on her last mission. She was scrolling through the messages, skimming the titles of the messages that cleared past her spam filter. She had just tapped one of the messages when the comm crackled to life.

'We're bringing the drive online, so prepare for a microjump to the relay. Elom says she hasn't quite got the phase coupler in sync, so its gonna be bumpy. So hang on to your whatever and get ready."

Erin, not wanting to lose her vodka, grabs the bottle by the neck and takes a pull from the bottle as the ship begins to shudder as the drive comes online. After the lurching transition, Erin sets the bottle down again, and starts going through the messages again. One of the messages catches her attention. The subject says "Need a pick-me-up? Contact me for a sample of Kellitix-10." This was unusual for a couple of reasons. First, it looked like spam, and so it shouldn't have made it past her filters. Second, the filter should have deleted the message since it didn't have a sender. And third, Kellitix was the name of a planet she had visited on a job a couple of months ago.

Putting those things together was enough to pique her interest enough to open the message. It appeared to be a standard spam message and had all the hallmarks of nothing but spam. But Erin selected another option on her omni-tool, and a piece of sophisticated decryption software ran over the message, sending the message through a series of verification protocols and returning the piece of spam with a new message, including a sender, and verified credentials.

"Omega has fallen. DO NOT ATTEMPT CONTACT. Return as planned."

Erin grinned. _Looks like the xenos are going to have a fun arrival at Omega when they get back. We're gonna show them something. Show them humanity isn't the lapdog of the galaxy._

She then turned her head to look to her right. Against the bar is an assortment of weapons. From an M8 Avenger, to an M98 Widow. An assortment of pistols in various states of stripping, submachine guns hanging on the studs sticking out of the bar stools. It took careful work to get her weapons laying out like this, to look like they are nonchalantly scattered. But every single one of the guns scattered around the bar is loaded and ready to fire. Why? Because she may be a part of Eclipse, but she doesn't trust any of these aliens to not put a bullet in her head. Idly, the former human special forces officer picks up the Avenger, closes her eyes, and starts the timer on her omni tool as she begins stripping the weapon down and reassembling it.

Each part in her fingers, each part on the table. Each part set in the right spot for muscle memory to pick them up in the right order, at the right time. She picks up the accelerator drive, slides it into place, and her fingers move for the cover...

_WHUMP_

The ship lurches as it reverts back to realspace. With a muttered curse, Erin's eyes snap open as she reaches a hand out to catch the missing part before it hits the floor. Outside the viewport is the familiar sight of the Omega-4 relay. It's menacing red glow pulses out into space, and the rapidly spinning core suggests a recent usage of the relay.

There is a knock at the door, and after Erin calls out to come in, the door hisses open as Lilegarix, the Turian first mate, enters. Her bright yellow face paint highlights the scars crisscrossing her face. She claims she got the scars from a Krogan power whip when she was a child, but Erin thinks the lines are too regular. The turian probably carved them herself with an omni-blade. Not that it matters to Erin. She could care less what Lily's story was.

_And in about a half hour, it isn't going to matter anyway. But until then..._

"What's up?" Erin asks, her tone bored. Her Slavic accent filtered out by the translators, which she finally got reprogrammed so the aliens could understand her. Erin grew up on the steppes of Russia. Her family is decended from a long line of Cossacks, and she is proud to continue her family legacy, even though her path has taken her away from her beloved Mother Russia, her family horses, and even her homeworld. But it cannot be helped. She had decided long ago to protect her home from everything that would threaten it. Especially the corrupting influence of alien cultures and ideals.

"Omega is a few minutes out. But Captain Velimes has a funny feeling about the system. She says something is wrong, but won't say what she thinks it is. So we're going in hot."

"Hot? On Omega? T'Loak will flip over that. I swear, that damn salarian is gonna get us killed with her paranoia."

Lily laughs. "Probably. But what's the Omega Queen gonna do? Our turf is ours. We pay her enough credits to keep order on our turf the way we want. A few extra bullets won't matter that much to her."

'Maybe not. But its also not a good idea to shoot up our home. People might leave, and then we're short customers, too."

"That's... a good point," Lily says. 'Still. Orders are orders. We go in weapons ready. But maybe we take that fraction of a second to assess before we pull the trigger."

Erin grabs her helmet as she slides the Avenger into its slot on the multi-weapon modular array on her back. 

"Want the Katana, Lil?" Erin asks, pointing to the shotgun laying on the bar.

"Nah. Got my ripper today," the turian replies, patting the SMG at her side.

'Alright," Erin goes on. "Let's get to the ramp and get ready to clear out the 'hostiles.'"

"What's the expression you Earthlings use? Fish in a barrel?"

Erin chuckles softly as they head for the boarding ramp.

_If you only knew..._


	4. Price of Progress

Lilegarix's lifeless body hit the floor with a loud thud. The hole in the back of her helmet still smoking from where Erin had put the round from her ever dependable Paladin.

There were twenty-two other bodies on the ground, not including the six now-former Eclipse mercs laying just outside the ship where their bodies had come to rest. Erin popped out the thermal clip and replaced it with a new one from her belt before reholstering her pistol. As she started rifling the bodies of her former teammates for their credits, a soldier in heavy, bulky armor came up to her and saluted. The soldier bore no rank or name on his armor. nothing to distiguish him from any other mercenary in the galaxy, except for one small thing. The hexagonal logo in black and orange, marking his soldier as a member of Cerberus, the only group that truly understands not only the threat posed by the Reapers, but by aliens in general. Cerberus. The only hope Earth has of protecting their culture and heritage from being overwhelmed by the thousands of years of advancements they have undertaken in just a century. An organization to which Erin Christov belongs.

An organization in which she believes.

Erin shakes her head as she pats down her former captain's armor, looking for credit chits. Erin never stays in the back. That should have been the paranoid Salarian's first hint that something was wrong. From the back it was easy enough to let the front take the first barrage of bullets. Then, when they ducked behind cover, Erin just had to pop out from her own cover and shoot the xenos in their faces while their shields were down. Oh, a couple of them had tricks up their sleeves. Perennia and Verennia, the two Asari biotics, had Barriers. And Lilegarix had augments in her armor to hypercharge her shields with a boost. They didn't go down easy.

Twenty-two good men, dead. Men who would never again see the blue skies of Earth. But they were at war, and war had casualties. They knew the risks. They volunteered.

They joined Cerberus.

As she watched, workers and cleaning bots arrived, to dispose of the bodies and clean the blood out of the bay floor. Erin directed one of the bots into her new ship. The Illusive Man didn't really care about things like that, so long as they didn't interfere with the operation. And with somewhere to work out of, she could afford to be more mobile and directly support Cerberus operations in the future.

As she stood there pondering the future, her comm crackled to life in her ear. The soft soothing programmed voice of a VI cheerfully informed her that a Mr. Hocop wanted to see her in an administration center. Sighing, she acknowleded the order and turned to head for a transport to take her deeper into Omega. As she did so, she passed by a couple of grunts who were lifting one of the bodies onto a stretcher to carry it away. An explosive round from Lilegarix had blasted this soldiers helmet in two, and the shattered remnants of the visor revealed an ashen face. Not unusual, considering it was a dead body, but something else caught her attention. The eyes. Frozen open in the rictus of death, the eyes glowed a solid blue color that unnerved Erin to her core because she had seen eyes like those before.

_They weren't screaming. Not really. But the rasping noise was loud enough from so many mouths that it seemed like a scream. Her avenger was growing hot in her hands. The new innovation by the Geth had not yet been widespread amongst the other races in the Galaxy, and so weapons still had to be cooled down the old fashioned way, by switching to another gun and continuing to fire._

_The entire population of Bella Nova, a city on the northern continent of Eden Prime, appeared to have been killed and converted into these zombie things, that they called husks._

_It was disturbing, but there was no choice. The husks were following the orders of the Geth, and so Erin followed her lieutenant's lead. It worked pretty well, until one of the husks tore its claws through his throat. Erin put the husk down with a burst from her Avenger, and looked down at the thing as it thrashed its last attempts to kill everything around it. And she looked into its eyes. Its glowing blue eyes...._

Erin looked down at the soldier in front of her and for the first time in years, had to fight down a wave of bile that threatened to overwhelm her stomach.

_It... couldn't be. Could it? Is Cerberus turning its own soldiers into husks? Mindless machines to fight the coming war? What the hell is this?_

And as Erin took her seat in the transport, she felt the first stirrings of something odd within her.

A crisis of a fundamental nature.

And for the first time in years, Erin saw herself looking at a new and unexpected fork in the road.


	5. Puddlejumping

She had been elusive for four months. Jumping on and off of Zeninae's radar. Ever since she reportedly left Omega, just two days after her arrival, she seemed to have been running.

Someone _might_ have leaked her investigation and pursuit to Cerberus, and Erin was trying to hide from her, but Zeninae doubted it. This smelt bad. Something was rotten, and it was up to Zen to figure it out.

But where to start? First, she tracked down an informant on Rorlexia, a mining operation in the Terminus systems. There, she was able to learn that known Cerberus traffic had sharply dropped in the last week. And at the same time, communications increased. Something big must be happening. A new operation, Zen concluded. She wondered who the target would be. Possibly the Turians. Turian-Human relations were at an all-time high, in no small part due to the working relationship of Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian. Cerberus would likely make a strike at some Turian facility. Maybe even the one that produced the new stealth cruiser no one was supposed to know about, but everyone did since the destruction of the first Normandy.

And then there was the little matter of Shepard not being dead, and the rumors that she was working for Cerberus. But Zeninae had been part of the team for Tevos, the Asari Councilor, to determine Shepard's motivations and mental state. The amount of files she was able to access through the Citadel's networks on Shepard was extensive. And Zen had come to the early conclusion that Shepard, while willing to accept, and even further the idea of better relations with the other Council species, has a small streak of fierce pride for her own race, as did almost every other proud member of _any_ species. And Zen concluded that, if Shepard's report to the Council was accurate and the Collectors were targeting specifically human colonies, Shepard would accept anyone willing to give her resources to protect her own species. 

What was the human analogy?

Selling her soul to keep a pittance?

But then... not long after Shepard returned from the grave, she returned from Cerberus. It seemed that she managed to claw her way out of hell, and had only the guard dog to contend with.

And then, there was the fact that Shepard was also known to be in love with the Quarian member of her crew. Ironic. That the woman who could beat her way through everything the universe has to offer, some of the meanest, hardest sons of bitches the Galaxy has, fight her way to the end, save her species, and bring everyone home from what was widely believed a suicide mission alive. And she has to go and love the one woman she can't just... touch. Zen could never do that. She could never love someone she couldn't be with. Couldn't hug, or kiss, or just even enjoy the simple pleasure of skin on skin...

And... Zen had to bring herself back to where she was.

And where she was, was sitting on a bench, in a park. In somewhere called... Moscow. Just a few blocks away, the building they called the Kremlin rose above the city, its bulb shaped domes rising up to shine in the late light coming from Earth's yellow sun. And while the Asari woman sat, watching the building down the street, pretending to fiddle with her omni-tool, she took note of the glances she got from passers by. Non-humans were not uncommon on earth _per-se_ , but they tended to keep to official locations, like Alliance headquarters in London. Or the Asari Embassy in Venice. That did not mean they were complete isolationists. Zeninae had noted at least forty other Asari taking tours of various parts of just this city. And official records listed several thousand Asari as living here in this Russia with their lifemates. 

But still, she got looks. Of course, that might also have something to do with her appearance. Asari were known to have a... reputation... around the galaxy, and a well earned one, she supposed. Her species required an influx of Alien DNA in order to keep the Asari viable as a race. Experiments into Asari eugenics programs, the search for the 'pure' Asari genetic material had some... embarassing... results. Ardat-Yakshi and worse. Zen shuddered at the thought.

But even among Asari, Zeninae was a bit more unique than most. Her figure was almost flawless, very little zero excess fat, and ninety percent of it rested in her more than ample bosom. Most of the rest of the other ten percent padded her hips, in what she knew was aesthetically pleasing to almost every species. All the major political ones, anyway. Goddess, she even had Krogan chasing after her during her early maiden stage. Krogan!

Her Omni-tool let out a chirp, interrupting her reminiscing about her past. Someone matching Erin's description was coming up the street. With a surreptitious glance toward the woman her omni-tool indicated, Zen was able to confirm with her own eyes that the woman was indeed Erin Christov. A much changed Erin Christov. Her face looked haggard, and her hair disheveled. Dirt and grime marked the end of a shift in one of Earth few remaining operational factories. Which might explain the shabby apartment that Zen was too smart to try and bug. Instead, she dropped a small drone from her omnitool, and ordered it into the tree behind her with an unobstructed view of the doorway. And then Zen herself got up and made her way back to her hotel, very much the opposite of what her target was living in. Spacious room, luxury bed with variable gravity settings for maximum comfort, a full size spa. Every creature comfort one would want in order to vacation in luxury. Zen settled in to the bath, a glass of something extremely bubbly that the friendly staff member called champagne in her hand, her drone footage playing on the display she had set up, and an idle daydream running through her mind involving the bed in the next room, a certain grav setting, some clever use of what little biotic power Zen had, and a certain human soldier she had been waiting for. After another glass of the champagne, Zen retired to the bed, sadly alone, to get some sleep before another fun and exciting day of surveillance greeted her in ten hours.

The alert woke her up three hours later.


	6. Zero Hour

The alarm jolted Zeninae awake. It was not an alert through her omni-tool, but rather a planetwide emergency alert.

_Earth is under attack from an unknown force. All citizens are asked to evacuate to emergency shelters immediately. Earth is under attack-_

Zen tuned out the alert. She did not need or want to retreat to an emergency shelter. She has a ship with a zero-mass drive larger than ships her size normally have. Not to the extent of a military ship, naturally, but it does allow for better speed than one might expect from a ship her size. Quickly, she dressed, her snug bodysuit darkening to a tone that complemented the night sky outside. Leaving most of her things behind, things can be replaced after all, Zen grabs her SMG and pistol, and then opens the door to her room.

 _Thwack!!_ The fist makes contact with Zen's face as she steps out of her room.

Stunned, the Asari woman falls back, and then reflexively brings her own hands up to block more blows to her face.

"I don't have time for a fight," a woman's voice says. Through the ringing in her head, she thought she recognized the voice. Her target's voice. _Her_ voice.

Zen lowered one of her hands to confirm the identity of her attacker. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. A gorgeously petite figure with curves that were just big enough to accent her femininity. A little emaciated, maybe, from months of living on the run and hiding. But nothing that Zen couldn't help her with. And... honestly, the vids and holos did not do this woman justice. She is so gorgeous that it almost hurts Zen. Against her current fight or flight instincts, Zen felt herself getting uncomfortably warm.

"I don't either. I need to get off Earth. Now," Zen heard herself say, as another attack from Erin pushed her back into her hotel room. The statement was accented by an explosion from somewhere outside the hotel.

"Sorry, but I am the one leaving Earth. And I can't have you following me, so I am going to take your ship." Erin aimed another blow at Zeninae, but the Asari woman was able to block it. It didn't seem like the Earthling was trying very hard to stop her. Zeninae, being well versed in hand to hand combat since her job often put her in close quarters with some of the scum of the galaxy, judged the human's quick attacks. Erin was aiming to disable, not to kill. Why? If the planet is under attack, her survival was a matter of chance anyway. 

"I have a better idea," Zen says, as she deflects another blow, taking it in the softer tissue of her side, rather than directly into her stomach. "My ship is big enough for both of us."

Erin let out a wordless cry as the words left Zen's lips. She attacked again. Fiercer. She started going for lethal attacks. Feint. Feint. Jab.

Zen blocked, retreated, blocked. "I can get us both off world. You can't activate the ship without the code anyway. 

"And that," she said, evading another attack aimed for her head by stepping back. She then tapped her temple with one finger, "is up here. You need me to use my ship. And I don't want to leave you here myself."

"I know," Erin said throwing a series of punches and kicks toward Zeninae's exposed middle. "But I have more important things to do than to get arrested right now."

"Fine by me," Zen said, throwing a punch of her own toward Erin's head. She grunts as Erin blocks the punch, deflecting it upward away from her head. "Why don't we quit wasting time, get to my ship and then sort us out?"

She threw another jab. "You know, when we aren't in mortal danger?"

And just like that, the fight was over. Zen, who was in the middle of a sequence of jabs, found herself off balance as Erin abruptly turned and started heading toward the port where Zen had parked her ship.

"Come on then, Xeno. We have some running to do."

* * *

As Zen and Erin exited the hotel, there was a loud explosion in the distance. Gunfire echoed in the streets. And overhead was a massive ship. Almost, but not quite squid shaped, it had multiple projections that it appeared to use as legs as it landed and began firing a powerful beam weapon. Hundreds of small arms, and larger weapons systems returned the fire, but none of them could come close to massive squid-ship was doing.

Zen found herself staring at it in awe. "Wha-What is it?"

Erin grabbed Zen by the elbow and talked as she started hauling the Asari woman to the docking port. "Can't be sure, but it matches the description Shepard gave after the fight at the Citadel."

Erin paused at a corner to look around it to see if the coast was clear.

'What do you mean, matches the description? That was Saren's flagship. Don't tell me he had more of them constructed?"

Some... things.. started rasping screams to the skies. People were screaming as buildings collapsed, and others exploded as the beam from the squid-ship hit them.

"Looks like we have hostiles ahead," Erin said. "Husks from the sound of it."

'So it is Saren's forces then? The Geth he had working for him?"

Erin shook her head at Zeninae's ignorance.

'Don''t be stupid, lady. You don't get to where you are in Asari Investigative Services by being stupid," Erin said with more than a little hint of condescension in the tone. "If you were that stupid, you never would have managed to find me here on Earth."

She stepped around the corner and started squeezing the trigger on her heavy pistol, dropping husk after husk as she kept moving toward the next outcropping of fallen concrete, steel and glass. Zen was just two steps behind, short bursts from her SMG dropping more of the synthetically altered humans.

"What do you mean, 'Don't be stupid?'" Zen asks when they both reach the cover a few moments later. "That is what the reports say. I wasn't on the Citadel, and all I have to go off of are the reports."

Erin raised her hand and fired a few rounds shooting blind as she looked incredulously at Zeninae. "But you heard about Shepard, right? About how she was supposedly crazy? Talking about massive species killing machines that cleansed the galaxy?"

"Well, sure, but with no evidence..." Her voice trailed off as Erin gestured overhead. And for the first time, Zeninae truly looked up to the sky.

And watched as more Reapers landed on the surface of Earth, firing massive energy weapons and destroying multiple buildings in one shot.

The Reapers.

They have arrived.


	7. Fight and Flight

Erin watched as Zeninae dispatched another pair of husks, their glowing eyes reminding her of her last trip to Omega. That sent a shiver down her spine, and reminded her that she had things that needed to be done. That was enough to bring her mind back to where she was.

Damn it all, how could she have let herself get into a situation where she needed the help of an alien? And worse, it had to be a damn Asari, didn't it? One of the God damn female looking ones that sleep with fucking everything that fucking move. And to top it off, she had to be _extremely_ female. If it weren't a damn alien it might have actually been... well... attractive.

Damn it all.

Nothing for it but to keep moving.

A scream from overhead, a building exploded, and only a few meters away from landing at Erin's feet was an Alliance soldier. Erin rushed over, her omni-tool ready to deploy a dose of medi-gel. But when she got there, she found that the soldier was dead. Erin closed the man's eyes, and heard the soldiers comms crackle with planetary chatter.

_"-fucking hard. I don't know if anything is going to be left of London."_

_"-lief is on the way. Evac shuttles have been dispatched, and before communications got cut-"_

_"-hear me? I'm trapped with sixty or seventy other survivors. We are pinned down in-"_

Erin decided that things sounded real bad. She knew, she believed, like most everyone in Cerberus did, that when the Reapers hit, it would not be good. How could it? The Reapers ended galactic civilization in fucking cycles. How could it possibly be good? Erin sighed as she knelt at the soldiers side. Then she did the two things she didn't want to do, but did because it would mean her survival. She ripped the Avenger out of the soldiers hand, and stripped the belt off the soldiers waist so she could carry spare ammo. Now that she was armed with a weapon, she hurried over to where Zeninae was still firing at oncoming husks.

"You okay?" the alien asked Erin. That prompted Erin to touch her face, and she realized she was crying. It wasn't hard to understand why. At least from her perspective. The Motherland was burning. Mother Russia was under attack. Erin's family had defended Russia since long before the family was married into the Christovs during the formation of the Soviet Union. 

"No. My home is burning. It is time to go. You ready to run? Because I do not want to stop for anything until we get to your ship."

Zeninae popped her head around the concrete column she was taking cover behind and fired another pair of shots before responding, "I can get there. I might be a bit winded because it will be running through a battlefield, but I can keep up."

Erin nodded. She ejected the thermal clip from the Avenger she had taken from the dead soldier, and replaced it with a new one from her also borrowed belt.

"Let's go. Bay Sixty-two, yes?"

Zeninae confirmed the location of her ship, not bothering to ask Erin how she knew. Of course she knew.

The next ten minutes were filled with running, gunfire, and the growls of various synthetic lifeforms trying to kill everything that moved. But finally, they arrived at the spaceport, and made their way inside. One of the Reapers had destroyed a building to the left of the massive structure, but had moved deeper into the city, obviously deciding that it could simply kill the people and not have to worry about destroying every structure. And so, they were able to make their way inside, where things were not much better than they were on the outside.

Refugees had flooded to the port, and were trying to board every ship they could open. Some of the people were armed with what looked like older model weapons, that didn't rely on thermal clips to keep cool, but on not firing them for a time to cool them down. And all of them are trying to get off the planet. Unsurprisingly, she supposed.

Erin and Zeninae entered the spaceport, and headed toward a flight of stairs that would lead them up to the third level where Zen has her ship docked. As they ran down the corridor, or rather, tried to run down the corridor and instead pushing their way through a massive press of people, all with the same idea as the two women. And even when they reached the correct bay, they faced a new problem. A group of enterprising and desperate people have started trying to bypass the security of the four ships in the port and gain entry to be able to take the ships and escape the planet.

'Which one?" Erin asked as they entered and she took stock of the situation.

Zeninae pointed to the indigo ship with the dark violet striping. "There. The _Phyrikka._ "

Erin didn't hesitate. She took her rifle, and fired it at the ground in front of the people trying to break their way inside the ship. This caused them all to jump away from the ship, and they turned, raising their weapons to the two women making their way to the ship. "This one's ours," one of the people said. "Go find your own."

Erin continued to walk forward, seemingly oblivious to the weapons aimed at her. "No. It isn't. This one belongs to her," she said, jerking a thumb back to where Zeninae was typing something into her omni-tool.

'Well," the human said, lifting a pistol from where he had been holding it near her hip. "We can fix that easily enough."

Erin took another step forward. "I'd stop right there lady. There are a whole hell of a lot more of us than there are of you."

Erin took a long exaggerated look around. Then she turned back to the man holding the pistol. "Correct me if I am wrong. But you have sixteen men with you, armed with a variety of rifles and pistols. Not one of you has a weapon heavier than that." 

Erin pulls the charging handle on her Avenger, and it emits a humming sound. "Tell you what. Go get more friends. Come back when you have maybe thirty more. Then it will be fair fight."

As she spoke, she apparently got close enough to grab the man by the wrist. She pulled him around, got his head in a lock, and was holding her Avenger against the top of his head.

"I think you should gather your friends, take your weapons and plasma welders and get out of here."

The man waved his arm and the others started doing exactly what she said to do, running away.

"I see you really do have a way with people,' Zeninae says.

"Mmm," Erin replies noncommittally. "Shooting them would have taken too long. Are you ready to open up your ship so we can get out of here?"

As Erin finished asking that, the hatch hissed open and a ramp lowered, allowing them access to the ship, and the two women wasted no time running up the ramp.

Moments later, the ship was lifting up off the ground, preparing to make an exciting escape from the besieged planet.


	8. Under Fire

The alarm trilled, an incessant repeating whine that was screaming out the ship's pain, screaming at the beings who were supposed to be in control that the ships outer hull had been struck with enough violence to rip an opening in it. It continued to scream and trill at the vessel's occupants until one of them hit the poor thing to silence it.

Zeninae had her hands in the controls, her body moving in the seat, as she wildly gesticulated the manual control to keep up the evasive maneuvers. Just over two meters away, Erin was interfacing with another set of controls, her omni tool rapidly humming and scrolling through application after application, seeking the right interface. Another sharp impact rocked the [i]Phyrikka[/i] and the alarm started its wailing all over again.

A projector in the floor activated, showing the scope of the problem. While a Reaper had not decided to engage them directly, they have sent smaller... eyeball looking things to attack them. 

[i]Ships? They must be to be able to maneuver in the vacuum of space like they do, but they pull g-forces that would kill anything inside, even with inertial damping to make it tolerable.[/i]

'Kinetic barriers at 43 percent," Erin said, calmly. Her voice hardly seemed to register how much danger they were in. Zeninae supposed that was an account of how often the merc found herself in these kinds of situations, just inches from death. 

Well.

It was far different for Zen. She very rarely found herself in these situations, her life protected by her drones, her surveillance, and her wits.

And her ability to have a squad of law enforcement agents on standby to go in with her.

"Well, do something about the things shooting at us! Shoot back, for fuck's sake!"

"What the hell do think I've been doing, lady? Ordering a damn pizza!? The weapons on this piece of space trash are useless!"

[i]So. You[/i] can [i]get a rise out of her. Good.

Wait....[/i]

"Space trash? Space trash!? I will have you know that this is one of the finest ships you can get on the civilian market. And the weapons are military grade. He is certainly [i]not[/i] space trash."

"Whatever you say, squidhead! Just get us the fuck out of here, and then I can tell you why this ship is piece of-"

But whatever she was going to say was cut off by another impact to the ship, and it was violent enough that Erin was knocked sideways in her seat, the Kinetic arrestors keeping her from being tossed around the bridge like a rag doll caught in a laundry dryer. Erin shoved herself upright again, and checked her monitors. "21 percent. We won't survive a shot once they go down. I've got as much power routed to them that doesn't compromise the engines or life support. Everything else has been rendered useless. Not that it did any good to begin with."

"Any other critiques of my ship you would like to get out of your system before we die and become space dust? Make it quick," Zen said, motioning to the holographic display. "It looks like they're coming around again."

"Matter of fact," Erin said smugly. "I do."

They both reached out and braced their hands against the nearby bulkheads, as the eyeball fired at them as its course brought it across the [i]Phyrikka[/i]'s hull once again. But this time, Zen was able to cause the ship to dodge the beam, and it shot harmlessly past them.

"And what," Zen said, grunting as she pulled on the controls to cause the ship to spin one hundred-eighty degrees on its x-axis while rotating about it's y-axis to change the course suddenly. "And what exactly would that complaint be?"

Erin punched down on her control, and the drive core pulsed as it generated a mass effect field, and the [i]Phyrikka[/i] shot away from Earth faster than the speed of light with a soft [i]Whoom[/i] that both women felt through their boots.

Erin grinned as she undid her combat arrestor and reclined back in her chair with a sigh of relief.

Zen did the same, her head coming to rest on the back of her seat. She could still feel the adrenaline coursing through her system. She knew that it wouldn't last, and was glad to be in a chair for when this particular high was over.

After a moment, she lifted her head to look at the human woman. Her chest was heaving up and down, and for just a moment, Zen recalled watching that chest heave on vid. Which caused a different kind of hormone to flood her brain, but Zen fought that down. With difficulty, but she managed it. Instead, she managed to speak.

"Hey. Merc. Erin."

Erin didn't lift her head up. "Hmm."

"Your complaint. About my ship."

"Yeah?"

'Well? What is it? What else could be bothering you about it, that you would have wanted to tell me about it right before we died?"

"Oh, yeah. That," This time, the woman did lift her head. Lifted it up enough to look Zen in the eye.

"Whoever the fuck designed the interior of this ship did a piss poor job when it came to the color scheme. Dying on a combat couch this shade of purple would have fucking killed me."

Zen just stared as the mercenary complained about the furniture. And then she just couldn't help it. She started to chuckle.

Before long, as her ship made its way to a Mass Relay, the bridge was filled with laughter. The real, genuine laughter that you get, when your body and mind realize just how close to death you had just come, and how closely you avoided that fate.

Zen was still laughing hard enough that she never noticed Erin's hand move over the controls, changing their destination.


	9. Shackled

The stress of combat flowed out of Erin. Following the directions from Zeninae, she found herself in the galley, rummaging around through the bottles stored in the compartments.

It took a few minutes, because there were so many bottles to go through. But finally, Erin found one that smelled the most like a good vodka.

Collapsing onto a sofa, Erin took a long pull from the bottle, then started composing a letter on her omni-tool, taking more pulls from the bottle as she goes. She finished writing the letter and was in the process of sending it, as Zeninae came into the galley. Erin covered the sending message by taking another drink from the bottle. Zen looked at the display before her with a frown.

"I do have glasses, you know."

Erin, having had about half of the bottle by this point is feeling absolutely no pain. "This is not time for using of glasses."

Her accent had become heavier with the drink, it seems. And her speech had started to slur, but she pressed on regardless.

"Is time for drinking like is no tomorrow," Erin said, using the bottle to accentuate her point by aiming the neck at Zen. "And with Reapers? There may not be. So!"

She took another drink from the bottle. "Tonight, we drink!" The bottle fell from her hand. Zeninae walked across the small galley, a smile spreading on her lips.

"No. Tonight, you drink. And not just the Vaskaryian Reserve. You see, I keep a couple of sets of bottles on board. Because I know that I can lure some of my targets into coming back to my ship for a good time. I will admit, I have never used a planetwide battle before, but it did prove quite effective. Oh," she said, sounding genuinely surprised to have gone off track like she did. "The bottles. Yes, I keep two sets of drinks on board. One set, the set in my quarters, is the real stuff."

Zeninae picked up the bottle from the floor, and gave the remains of what was left in it a long glance, before turning back to the now barely conscious Erin.

"The second bottle is laced with several compounds designed to knock out almost every known species. So, before you lose consciousness, is there anything you want to say? Because by the time you wake back up, we'll be back in Asari space, and you'll be heading to trial."

This time it was Erin's turn to smile. "We.. will... see... who is laughing... last..."

Erin's head fell back on the sofa, and she was passed out. Zeninae worked fast. Pulling a set of restraints from a compartment built into the wall, she cuffed Erin's wrists behind her. Then, using her little biotic strength, she was able to lift Erin up from the couch, and down the one tiny corridor that separated the ship into three sections. One section was the bridge, the aft section was the engine compartment, and the middle was the living spaces. She tapped a wall console, and one of the doors into one of the bedrooms irised open. She pushed against Erin with her biotics, and moved her onto one of the beds. Letting her go, Erin sank into the thick foam of the bunk, and uncomfortable as she had to be with her arms pinned behind her back with a pair of restraint cuffs, the Russian woman still moaned in comfort. The soft sound broke Zen's heart, just a little, and she had to remind herself that the woman was a hardened criminal who would kill her and take the ship if she had half a chance.

But that still didn't stop her from stroking a blue hand along Erin's hair and brushing the other woman's cheek. She might be a human Xenophobe, but fuck if she wasn't still hot.

 _I wonder what it would be like to meld with her._

The thought shocked her right out of her reverie, and made her stand bolt upright. She wasn't so old that she wanted to burden herself down with kids. Not yet. But there she was, thinking about it. About this woman.

It had to be the Reaper attack. It had to be. Nothing like the end of the universe to get someone thinking about future generations. No, Sir.

Zen quickly stepped out of the room and closed the door.

_Time to think about something else... Anything else..._

But twenty minutes later, Zeninae found herself naked in her quarters with an issue of Fornax on the bed next to her, and a collection of other toys beside her. Zeninae had had years to figure out how to get the most out of her little 'alone time' sessions. Being an agent for her government meant a lot less time able to be devoted to going around the galaxy and screwing everyone who took her fancy. But something about her little session of fun time was missing something, and it drove Zen nuts until she gave up on everything and collapsed into her bed in a frustrated, and very unsatisfied nap.

She woke up when she felt the main drive switch from FTL to sublight mode. And then her comm started beeping. And, not wanting to answer it naked (she did have _some_ propriety, after all), she pulled on a skintight suit of a dark green color, but she didn't bother with anything else, just the suit.

She had just finished zipping the suit up to where she felt comfortable with it as she walked through the door into the bridge. With this particular suit, that meant she stopped zipping just under her breasts so she could breathe easily. She hadn't looked in a mirror before coming out of her quarters, so she was not sure how the srest of her looked, but considering that she had just escaped from a planetary siege just under a day ago, she guessed she could be forgiven looking a little disheveled. And if they thought otherwise, well, fuck them then.

She toggled the comm system on. As she did so, she took the opportunity to look outside the viewport on the front wall. Where she saw the imposing and majestic sight of the Citadel dominating the view of space.

"What the fuck?" she said, as the voice on the other end of the comms said, "This is Captain-"


	10. Reanalysis

Zeninae is looking at the image of a man in an Alliance uniform.

"This is Captain Rommel of the Systems Alliance vessel _Tripoli_. I assume I am speaking with the Asari MercComm Agent Zeninae?"

Zen took a moment to gather herself, and then turned to her controls, inspecting them.

_When did she get the chance to change our course? And how did I never notice it?_

"Yes, Captain. I am Zeninae. And I assume this is not a social call?" Definitely not. Her sensors tell her that the _Tripoli_ already has their weapons trained on her. They knew she was coming here. But how could they have known where she would be coming out of....

She focused her scanners out to their maximum distance. And then she saw them. Five other Alliance ships. All of them coming toward her from other locations in the nebula.

_She must have sent the message before she passed out from the drugs. Clever. Changed our course, let someone know she was coming... But why?_

"No. We have been led to believe that you have one of our own on board. Commander Christov. Our deep cover asset in Cerberus."

Erin felt her jaw drop. "Deep... Cover....?"

Captain Rommel clasped his hands behind his back. "Yes. She risked everything to try and get as far into Cerberus as she could. I have also heard some things about what she has been up to since heading on assignment, so I have to ask. What are the charges against Commander Christov?"

Zen made a noncommittal shrug of her shoulders as she replied. "I wasn't told. Probably standard merc stuff. Murder, smuggling, slave trading."

In the back of her mind, Zen was trying to figure out if there was a way out. But at the same time, she wanted to hear more about this slightly less murderous Erin.

_Fuck. I really am fucking falling for my goddamn prisoner, aren't I? Goddess damn you, Erin Christov! Why did you have to be my most attractive bounty?_

It was no good. They had figured out all the best angles, and those other ships were moving fast to block them off. And they were all in range of each other, meaning she was effectively cut off from any potenial escape route.

"Well, Agent Zeninae. It looks like we have a diplomatic situation on our hands here. You have one of our people. And she is legally bound by your laws and customs. And we are in Citadel space, which makes it your call how we proceed. I would ask that you return Ms. Christov to us. After all, the Reapers are here, and we need every body to fight them." 

Zen hesitated. One the one hand, she would really love to free Erin. It is entirely possible that a lot of what she has presented is nothing more than a cover. Something to ingratiate herself with Cerberus. But Cerberus tends to find out real fast if you are being honest with them. Especially when it comes to hating other races.

On the other hand is her duty to her agency and to the government on Thessia... And she has never lapsed in her duty before. But. There were also the fucking Reapers to worry about. Images of Earth flashed through her mind. Seeing the dead bodies in the streets. Hearing the screams of the dying thousands in the city.

The sounds of the Reapers unleashing their energy weapons on the planet that was defenseless to their onslaught. The children...

"Captain. I need a drink to think this over. I am going to dock at the Citadel. Tayseri Ward. There is a club there known as Nightshade. We will do my thinking there."

Captain Rommel nodded his head. "Understood. Rommel out."

The hologram faded, and Zeninae watched as the _Tripoli_ began to turn away from her ship. She gave them another minute to actually prove they were moving away from her before she powered up the _Phyrikka_ 's engines and started heading for the Citadel. Receiving the necessary clearances to dock, she switched on the autopilot, trusting the VI pilot program to dock with the Citadel without her direct intervention. Then she turned and strode off the bridge.

There were things to take care of before she met with Captain Rommel.


	11. Concerning Flight

Zen sat in a booth in one of the corners of Nightshade. Unlike some of the other clubs and bars on the Citadel, Nightshade does not always have loud, clashing, almost overwhelmingly synthetic music playing. Just once a day, for two hours. Now was not one of those times.

Instead. a smoother lower jazz, one of the varieties produced by the Hanar, evocative of a life in water, and from what Zeninae understands, sounds far better when listened to while under any depth of water, even just the bath. Sitting at her table, Zen had her eyes closed, nursing a fizzing red drink of some kind. Her head was following along to the music and she seemed to be content. But it was all a cover.

Inside her head, so many thoughts tumbled. Thoughts of human politics, and the Asari political environment. Thoughts of her career. Of a career balanced against what is now obviously the fate and future of the entire galaxy.

Somewhere, somewhere out there, the Reapers, the things that everyone said were fairy tales. They are real. Solid. Made flesh. _And that is a_ fucking _scary thought._

"Agent."

The voice pulled Zen out of her thoughts. Her eyes snapped open and she looked up to see Captain Rommel standing over her. She gestured to the seat on the other side of the booth, and the human officer took the offer. Not long after he sat down, a Turian brought over a drink and set it in front of the captain. He nodded as she walked away.

“I understand your apprehension about what I’ve told you about Commander Christov. Is there anything i can do to help you clear things up?”

"I do not believe so. Not, I think, from you, anyway. You used to be her CO, and from what I read was the one to put her in for a field commission, isn't that right?"

Captain Rommel took a drink from his glass. "Yes. It was after our action at Torfan. Her dropship was shot down, and of the forty marines aboard, only twenty-six of them came home. including their lieutenant. But he lost his mind in the heat of battle, and had given up. It was Ms. Christov that pulled her squad together, got them back on their feet, and dragged their looey home. After completing their objective. And she was fresh out of boot as well, proving she had what it took. So, yeah. I put her in for the commission. Because she earned it."

'What was her objective? What was so important to her that she, a... Sorry, but I believe the rank is a... Private?" Rommel nodded, and Zen continued.

'What was so important that she would do such a thing, over what I am sure the others wanted, and an officer who was probably screaming orders of her own at them, as well."

"The lieutenant suffered a break. Completely lost his mental state. When they got back to us he was slung over a soldiers shoulder, completely catatonic. Had been for hours, they said. As to their objective, one of the pirate bands had cobbled a decent enough base out of a few small ships that didn't disintegrate when it impacted years before. Their objective was to penetrate and pacify the occupants of the base, and rescue the people the Batarians had taken as slaves."

The Turian came by and dropped off fresh drinks at the table. 'When the detatchment breached the base, they found that most of the slaves were mostly humans, but there were a couple of Asari with their kids, some Salarians who had been on holiday, and even a Quarian teenager who kept saying he had been trying to acquire parts for his ship, but his suit had been ruptured in more than a few places. Christov scooped them all up and started heading for anywhere they could make contact for a retrieval."

'You've left out the best part, Captain."

Both Rommel and Zeninae whipped their heads around to see Erin standing just a meter away from the table. Both of them looked in astonishment at the woman.

Zen managed to speak first. "How-?"

"How did I manage to break out? Two things. The first is that you aren't as clever as you think. Your internal security is a joke. Guessing its because you don't typically leave your strung out prisoners alone on your ship, in case they run off with it."

"And the second?" Rommel asked.

"The second is that I have been exposed to a lot of the shit Eclipse uses to pacify slaves. Hell, I dosed myself with a lot of it between jobs so they couldn't use it on _me._ Oh, and here. You can have these back."

Erin's hand blurred, and something glinted in the light of the club before something clanked on the table. Zeninae's restraints. Deactivated, but not destroyed. Zen looked up to say something to Erin, but the human woman was already addressing her one-time Captain.

"Captain Rommel. Whatever happens to me, sir. I need you to get word to Alliance command. Fuck, to everyone. Humans, Turians, Quarians. Shit, we should probably let the krogan know too."

"Know what, exactly, Commander?" The captain looked at his fellow officer. _Guess I've made my decision on that,_ Zen though, noting her usage of officer in the thought.

"It's Cerberus, sir."

"What is it? What are they up to?"

"They are turning their grunt and shock troops into some kind of hybrid Husk, sir. Using Reaper technology."

"So, its true, then. Shepard didn't destroy the Collector base."

"No sir, she did. Cerberus has been sending ships into the Omega-4 relay ever since she came back, bringing whatever they could with them. But sir, it's worse than that."

"How do you figure, Commander?"

'Sir. The Illusive Man will do whatever it takes to ensure humanity's survival. It has been his goal since he founded Cerberus. But if he is using Reaper-tech? I talked to Shepard once, after Sovereign's attack on the Citadel. And from what I understand, it's worse than anyone thinks."

Erin Christov sucked in a breath.

"I think the Illusive Man, self-appointed guardian of Humanity, has been brainwashed by the Reapers to split us into two easier to digest pieces."

Zen didn't realize she had dropped her glass until she heard it shatter on the floor, her drink soaking into her boot.


End file.
